Frédérick Martin writes essentially tense music : extreme tessituras and registers, planned organisation of constraints, exploration of instrumental resources to their practical limits, mobilisation of the orchestra’s energy in eruptive, incandescent sonority -such are the particularities which characterise an entire composition style focused on effort. Yet there is nothing thankless or tiresome in the audible result. The virtuosity of composition, apparent down to the slightest detail of instrumentation, obeys a meticulous preoccupation with articulation. A sonorous plasticity dominates, seemingly shared between transgressive violence and a will to design. Frédérick Martin’s musical architectonics couple effervescent mobility with basic impetus. Uproar, stridency and deflagration punctuate an irresistible dynamic ascension. Encore le style de l’acier (Still the steel style) : around the work’s emblematic title a strange relationship is developed between calculation and impulse, wrought with vehemency and cold rage.